Eviction from Manas National Park, Assam, India

Local Bodo communities are threatened by eviction, while other Adivasi and no Bodo communities have faced eviction since the last decade. Are Conservation Organisations complicit in ethnic discrimination?

Description

The Manas Wildlife Sanctuary is a National Park, a Tiger Reserve and a UNESCO heritage sites. It is located on the Himalayas foothills of the North East state of India, Assam, and it is contiguous with the Royal Manas National Park of Bhutan. The Manas National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage (WH) site is a part of the Himalayan biodiversity hotspot [8]. It also forms the core of the Manas Tiger Reserve, which is recognized as an important tiger habitat. In 1985, when Manas was listed as a WH site, it not only had a large tiger population, but also other large carnivores as well as diverse and abundant populations of wild ungulates to sustain them [8]. Soon Manas was engulfed in the politico-ethnic disturbance that started in and around the landscape in the late 1980s, whereby the Bodo community, the largest tribal group of Assam, was demanding greater political rights and powers. The violence that followed caused large-scale damage to Manas, with the habitat, wildlife, and management and protection activities suffering immensely. It also led to the local extinction of the great Indian one-horned rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis) and the swamp deer (Cervus duvauceli rangitsinhi). In 2003, after a long and strenuous period of political negotiations, the Bodo Territorial Council (BTC) was established within Assam, which provided the local Bodo community legislative, administrative, executive and financial autonomy in the Bodo-dominated areas of northwestern Assam. [8]

The area is mostly inhabited by the Bodo indigenous community, and it has been an area of intense military ethnic conflicts between 1980 and 2003. During the military conflict, the wildlife was highly damaged, and restoration projects started taking place just after the declaration of the Independent Bodo Land territory, called as Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD) [1].

In the last years, the conservation projects, the expansion of the park, and the entrance of international conservationist NGOs such as IFAW and WTI in the area, have generated a new kind of conflicts around the park. Several eviction drives carried out by the forest department, have been reported in the local newspapers. The first eviction took place on December 2016 in the Betbari area, under the Bhuyanpara Range, where permanent huts belonging to the Bodo communities were destroyed. The eviction aimed to clean up the territory of 700 encroachers [2]. As per notification No. FD/TP/WHS/3339-48 submitted to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Wildlife and Chief Wildlife Warden of Assam, the area of Betbari, Kohirabari and Dihira Panda, which correspond to an area of about 16.00 sq km was cleaned up of encroachers on 22 December 2016 [3]. According to the notification, the eviction was successful and carried out with the assistance of 350 police and armed personnel for the destruction of about 550 hutments.

Moreover, as per field reports and secondary data reports another eviction drive took place between January and February 2017. The eviction was confronted by a strong protest which forced the forest department to leave the eviction after 11 am. The protest was held by over 2000 people coming from the nearby villages [4]. According to a report released in 2017 by Housing and Land Rights Network, throughout the year a number of 2.250 families were evicted without any resettlement from the Kheropara Reserve Forest, Manas National Park, and Lahorijan Reserve [5]. Earlier in 2016, the area under Chirang district had also been a territory of conflict, and eviction was faced by a number of 1.000 Adivasis living in the area [6 ]. According to the reports these are Adivasis that have been settled in the area around 15/20 years back as victims of the conflict. No solutions and no alternatives housing have been suggested by the Assam administration.

More generally the fights over forest resources and access to the natural spaces continue to be a source of conflict around Manas National Park. The declaration of the park as a Tiger Reserve in 2008, brought new regulations and more restrictions into the area. The forest dwellers have only started the process of claiming the Forest Rights under the Forest Rights Act, and till now no forest rights have been yet recognized.

It is also interesting to note the discriminatory character towards the forest dwellers by the forest department and its support by the conservation INGOs. This was observed in a poster which bears the logo of IFAW and WTI, which represents the Adivasis to be expelled from the park in dark skin, and it is written in the poster: 'Trespassers, Encroachers, Hunters, Loggers if found in the reserve will be prosecuted, fined and jailed'[7].

Manas National Park was declared a sanctuary on 1 October 1928 with an area of 360 km2. In 1973 has been declared as a Manas Tiger Reserve with an area of 2837,10 sq km. It was declared a World Heritage site in December 1985 by UNESCO, and a MAB Biosphere Reserve in the same year. The core of the Tiger Reserve was declared as a National Park in 1990, for an extension of 500 sq km. In 1992, UNESCO declared it as a world heritage site in danger due to heavy poaching and terrorist activities.

On May 2008 the Department of Environment and Forest notified the limits of the area, declaring the National Park as a Tiger Project, and creating a core area of 526 sq km and a buffer of 2310.88 sq km. In August 2016, the limit of the core areas was expanded area got expanded up to 880 sq km, and for a total area of 3150.92 sq km. The park is divided into 3 range: Bansbari, Bhuyanpara, Panbari. The National park follows under the district of Chirang and Baksa, and the Buffer area of the entire Tiger Reserve fallow on the west under the district of Udalguri and on the West under Kokrajhar.

The core zone of the park is not highly inhabited. There are about 57 villages living in the buffer area of the Manas National Park. It is dominated by the Bodo people, and the National Park is part of the Bodo land territorial area. However, there are also many Adivasis, brought from central India to Assam from the British in the pre-independent period for the purpose of tea labour. There are many Conservationist NGOs working for the biodiversity conservation of the Manas National Park, such as Aaranyak, WPSI, WWF. The forest villages located inside the limits of the core area are considered encroachers.

Visible: Displacement, Increase in violence and crime, Lack of work security, labour absenteeism, firings, unemployment, Loss of livelihood, Loss of traditional knowledge/practices/cultures, Militarization and increased police presence, Violations of human rightsPotential: Specific impacts on women, Land dispossession, Loss of landscape/sense of place

Outcome

Project Status

In operation

Pathways for conflict outcome / response

Land demarcation Migration/displacement Repression

Do you consider this as a success?

Not Sure

Why? Explain briefly.

In Manas the conflict over natural resources has developed over several levels. People are resisting against the different plans of eviction by the government, but according to the ethnic belonging (if adivasi, muslims or bodo), can be considered a success or not.